1Sa 15:4-9 | KD

‏ 1 Samuel 15:4-9

He then advanced as far as the city of the Amalekites, the situation of which is altogether unknown, and placed an ambush in the valley. ויּרב does not come from ריב, to fight, i.e., to quarrel, not to give battle, but was understood even by the early translators as a contracted form of ויּארב, the Hiphil of ארב. And modern commentators have generally understood it in the same way; but Olshausen (Hebr. Gramm. p. 572) questions the correctness of the reading, and Thenius proposes to alter בּנּחל ויּרב into מלחמה ויּערך. נחל refers to a valley in the neighbourhood of the city of the Amalekites. 1Sa 15:6-7

Saul directed the Kenites to come out from among the Amalekites, that they might not perish with them (אספך, imp. Kal of אסף), as they had shown affection to the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt (compare Num 10:29 with Jdg 1:16). He then smote the Amalekites from Havilah in the direction towards Shur, which lay before (to the east of) Egypt (cf. Gen 25:18). Shur is the desert of Jifar, i.e., that portion of the desert of Arabia which borders upon Egypt (see at Gen 16:7). Havilah, the country of the Chaulotaeans, on the border of Arabia Petraea towards Yemen (see at Gen 10:29). 1Sa 15:8-9

Their king, Agag, he took alive (on the name, see at Num 24:7), but all the people he banned with the edge of the sword, i.e., he had them put to death without quarter. “All,” i.e., all that fell into the hands of the Israelites. For it follows from the very nature of the case that many escaped, and consequently there is nothing striking in the fact that Amalekites are mentioned again at a later period (1Sa 27:8; 1Sa 30:1; 2Sa 8:12). The last remnant was destroyed by the Simeonites upon the mountains of Seir in the reign of Hezekiah (1Ch 4:43). Only, king Agag did Saul and the people (of Israel) spare, also “the best of the sheep and oxen, and the animals of the second birth, and the lambs and everything good; these they would not ban.” משׁנים, according to D. Kimchi and R. Tanch. , are לבטן שׁניים, i.e., animalia secundo partu edita, which were considered superior to the others (vid., Roediger in Ges. Thes. p. 1451); and כּרים, pasture lambs, i.e., fat lambs. There is no necessity, therefore, for the conjecture of Ewald and Thenius, משׁמנּים, fattened, and כּרמים, vineyards; nor for the far-fetched explanation given by Bochart, viz., camels with two humps and camel-saddles, to say nothing of the fact that camel-saddles and vineyards are altogether out of place here. In “all that was good” the things already mentioned singly are all included. המּלאכה, the property; here it is applied to cattle, as in Gen 33:14. נמבזה = נבזה, despised, undervalued. The form of the word is not contracted from a noun מבזה and the participle נבזה (Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 463), but seems to be a participle Niph. formed from a noun מבזה. But as such a form is contrary to all analogy, Ewald and Olshausen regard the reading as corrupt. נמס (from מסס): flowing away; used with reference to diseased cattle, or such as have perished. The reason for sparing the best cattle is very apparent, namely selfishness. But it is not so easy to determine why Agag should have been spared by Saul. It is by no means probable that he wished thereby to do honour to the royal dignity. O. v. Gerlach's supposition, that vanity or the desire to make a display with a royal slave was the actual reason, is a much more probable one.